Donald produced a great many maps and carefully spread them out on the table, adjusted his spectacles carefully, and with his $10,000 face looked squarely into Vance’s, and proceeded to go over the old, old story of the unlimited natural resources of the valley. He discussed at length, and in a very entertaining and convincing manner, the number of acres of land already in cultivation, the probable annual increase acreage of farm land; figured out results that amounted to millions of dollars. He then carried Vance from one side of the map to the other, up to the top, then down to the bottom and back again to the point where they had first started; indeed, he quite enthused Vance in regard to the future prospects and final outcome of Waterville. He also confirmed Winthrop’s statement in regard to their inability to take any money out of the treasury for [154] the purpose suggested without first having an action of the directors. “I advise you to write to your New York friends,” continued Donald, “and tell them their investment is all right, if—mark, I say if—they have the nerve to stay with it a year or such a matter. Of course this article in the Banner hurts us immensely. It is simply a highhanded piece of boycotting; but the west has received similar injustice at the hands of the great New York dailies times without number in years gone by.” Acting on Marcus Donald’s advice, Vance wrote a letter that day to his New York friends, and afterwards felt better for having done so. He determined to remain a week or two at Waterville, and see if there was any demand for real estate. Before many days, he began to understand the wonderful, far-reaching effects of the late article in the Banner. Rival surrounding towns copied it, and with double-leaded editorials called attention to a town that had over-reached itself. They denounced the various members of the Waterville Town Company as villainous sharks, and predicted that the boom had been pricked with a needle that would let all the wind out of it. The transient class of real estate agents and hangers-on, who had been doing a rather thriving business, said, “Boys, this ends it,” as they blew the foam from their glasses of beer, “we might as well go somewhere else as wait and see the dog-fennel grow in the streets of Waterville.” One day Vance called on J. Arthur Boast at his office. He found him as elegantly dressed as ever, and engaged in tying up bundles of legal papers, deeds, contracts, etc. [155] “Are you getting ready to move away from Waterville?” asked Vance. “No, I am not going away; that is, not permanently,” replied Boast, as he stooped to brush a speck of dust from his highly polished shoes, “but I do not presume we will have any use for deeds or contracts for some time to come, and I am therefore putting them away out of the dust until the boom opens up again.” “You talk a little discouragingly,” said Vance.